Aden has found that Data is becoming the most useful resource to an organisation to promote growth. In order for a company to understand their potential in the market, they need to understand the underlying behaviours of customers & their actions as a result of these behaviours. In the current environment, data is not utilised to its maximum potential. We are in this zone where we understand our existing market, & have suggestions for business improvements, but not taking the next steps of implementing these ideas to expand & grow. Moving forward, it will be imperative to adopt an environment where ideas can be implemented, tested, and trialled to maximise growth, and ensure the role data analysts play is completely realised.

Iain has observed a strong increase of interest among developers with within blockchain technology and cryptocurrency. So, what is blockchain / cryptocurrency? Blockchain is the technology that enables the existence of cryptocurrency (among other things). Bitcoin is the name of the most well know cryptocurrency, the one for which blockchain technology was invented! A cryptocurrency is a medium of exchange, such as the US dollar, but is digital and uses encryption techniques to control the creation of monetary units and to verify the transfer of funds. Even though Iain hasn’t noticed a significant amount of blockchain focused companies within Melbourne, he has noticed a community and greater amount of candidates ask if there are any roles on the market. Watch this space!

This month, Miles talks Facebook and JavaScript. Since its release, there has been a growing pressure on Facebook to review its licence for the very popular React JavaScript library. Under the original licence Facebook was able to revoke permission for companies to use React if legal proceedings were pursued against Facebook. In theory this meant that Facebook could steal your code and then revoke your ability to use React legally if you threatened legal proceedings, leaving organisations in a challenging situation. Compared to Google’s open source Angular, this left companies questioning whether using React was worth it. Fortunately community backlash from the likes of the Apache Foundation and WordPress, amongst others, prevailed and has seen Facebook revert this licence to the more open source MIT licence. Wins all round for the JS community.

Dylan attended the DevOps Melbourne Meetup which saw a representative from Puppet present on the “State of DevOps in 2017”. An area of focus in this report was on high / low performing teams, and how implementing DevOps practices can increase an organisation’s financial and non-financial measures. We learnt that high performing teams automate significantly more of their configuration management, testing, deployments and change approval processes than other teams. Puppet found signification differences in deployment frequency, they noted that high performing teams were able to deploy on demand (multiple deploys per day) compared to once per week / per month for low performers as well as areas such as change failure rate with high performers operating at between 0-15% compared to low performers going at around 30-45%. The report clearly shows how quickly IT teams are looking at making DevOps part of the business, it will be interesting to see what the report states in 2018 and beyond.

Dinh discusses the progression of Java 8 to 9, which was officially launched late last month. From speaking to various Java-centric clients of CircuIT Recruitment, Dinh has noted the following points with respect to Java 9 adoption / pre-adoption: Firstly, is Java 9’s focus on IoT. With the advent of edge computing, and the shift to lightweight controller processing, Java 9 really embraces this movement. Of note, is Java 9’s Project Jigsaw. Secondly, Java 9 has taken steps to optimise its cloud support, whereby it has pushed its scalability and resiliency attributes to better link up with increasing security and compliance requirements. Thirdly, Java 9 has addressed previous issues with concurrency, specifically concerned with cloud-scaling and static component sets. Ultimately, Java 9 has increased its capacity to sync with front-end, mobile and event application processes. Finally, Dinh, who has tracked Java since 2006, can see that the Java community is still as motivated as ever to keep itself at the forefront of software and tech, insofar as emerging application needs, technology tweaks, as well as consistently servicing the interests of the wider Java and development communities.

Aoife has been recruiting heavily in the security space this past month. She has noted that the reasoning behind this surge is due a national shortage of cyber security skills. This shortage of skills is leaving organisations’ more open to hacking. Aoife’s clients’ are wanting to improve their overall IS strategy. She is also seeing a shift away from outsourcing security. Aoife has noticed some of her clients are wanting to increase training and skills internally, thus another reason for a surge in security recruitment needs.

Brad discusses the strong demand that exists for Test Automation Consultants. Consultants with technical capabilities, who can code in either Java or C#, being particularly in demand. The line between Developer, and Test Analyst has become increasingly blurred, and some of Melbourne’s leading technology sites are moving away from specialist testing resources. Test Driven Development, and Business Driven Development experience are increasingly sought after! Github accounts for Test Analysts, are now a thing!

Given the rise of SCRUM teams, many of our Testing vacancies seek candidates to be the sole testing resource to assist in educating the rest of the team on best practice. The candidates that attract the most interest, are those that display enthusiasm for their role / career, and are proactive in keeping up to date with changing best practices and technologies. Brad found that the TEAM meet ups provided some great insights into Contract and Micro services testing.